(1) Field of the Invention
The following description relates to a liquid crystal display.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Liquid crystal displays (“LCDs”) are a widely used type of flat panel display. A liquid crystal display typically includes two display panels, on which field generating electrodes, e.g., pixel electrodes and a common electrode, are formed, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the two display panels. Voltages may be applied to the field generating electrodes to generate an electric field in the liquid crystal layer, and the alignment of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer is determined by the electric field. Accordingly, the polarization of incident light is controlled to display an image.
The liquid crystal display may further include thin film transistors connected to pixel electrodes, and a plurality of signal lines, such as gate lines and data lines, which controls the thin film transistors.
Types of LCDs include a vertical alignment (“VA”) mode LCD, which aligns longitudinal axes of liquid crystal molecules to be perpendicular to the two display panels when an electric field is not generated and has high contrast ratio and wide reference viewing angle. In the VA mode LCD, the reference viewing angle indicates a viewing angle that is 1:10 in contrast ratio, or a critical angle of gray-to-gray luminance reversion.
A method of forming a cutout in a field generating electrode of the VA mode LCD, and a method of forming a protrusion above or below the field generating electrode, may be used to achieve a wide viewing angle. The directions to which the liquid crystal molecules are inclined can be determined by the cutouts and the protrusions of the field generating electrodes, and the reference viewing angle may be thereby increased by diversifying the directions to which the liquid crystal molecules are included by arranging the cutouts and the protrusions in a certain way.
Typically, the side visibility of the VA mode LCD is inferior to front visibility thereof, and a method of dividing one pixel into two subpixels and applying different voltages to the two subpixels to obtain different transmittance may be used to improve the side visibility.